Oscar time for The King's Speech director Tom Hooper

The Oscar-nominated director of The King's Speech, Tom Hooper has already won the Directors Guild Award for the movie, which gives him an edge in the Oscar race. But prior to all the award announcements we talked with him about creating the impressive production. It's a little picture about a personal struggle, yet its appeal has been huge. The story is about Great Britian's King George VI (played by Colin Firth) and his struggle to overcome his stuttering problem with the help of an eccentric Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Hooper loved the story, and said there was no resistance from the royal family. And he revealed the greatest gift that helped him direct the movie was a diary. He explained, "Just nine weeks before the shoot, we discovered that Lionel Logue had kept a hand-written diary, which his grandson let me see, and I learned so much. So we set about rewriting the script based on this firsthand account of the relationship between the king and Lionel." Hooper admitted that changes in the script incorporated some of "the best and funniest lines, which are taken directly from the diary." Hooper is proud of the movie's buzz for awards season, and highly praises to his cinematographer and production designer for the period drama's visual style. He filmed at locations in London, although Lanchaster House was used for interiors of Buckingham Palace. Plus Ely Cathedral was a stand in for Westminster Abbey.#